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Monday, May 25, 2020

As you all know, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to grind away. The lock-down measures are easing, slowly in some places, quickly in others. Frequent comparisons to the 1918 flu pandemic are fodder for social media. It seems that how you respond to the recommended safety measures is a sort of political signaling now. It makes me feel so tired: like I've been holding my breath for days and only notice when I sigh.

There are so many aspects to this that I would have never imagined or predicted but I try to focus on the positive stories in this crazy situation. I am extremely thankful to be living in a place where cases are few. It haunts me to think of the number of people who have lost their lives in this. Today there are over 345,000 family members taken too soon. It puts all other difficulties in perspective.

Winter and Blue hope you're doing OK.

We continue to foster kittens to add some bright light to our day. A furry cuddle can make a huge difference.

The fall semester at Fanshawe will be fully online. All of my working time is spent preparing ANC and ANI for this new delivery method. How to build a rapport with a new cadre of students will be the most important question to answer. I am fortunate to be working with an awesome team of educators and I learn a lot every day.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

I thought the strike of '17 was the biggest disruption to teaching I would ever experience. I was off by a significant margin. On Friday March 13th, I met with my ANC students for the last time and we were sent home. Today it's official that the rest of the program will be delivered online.

I'm an in-person kind of guy, so it's tough to make this change but safety comes first. The logistics on my end are manageable. It's overcoming obstacles for students with limited access to hardware/software or internet that presents a real challenge.

It's been a whirlwind as everyone is working to get things ready for classes to resume online on Monday the 23rd. I'll update this post and let you know how it goes.

*update two - May 25th. For the most part, the semester completed successfully. There are still a couple of students with 'I' grades who have to complete and submit their final projects. I'm really impressed with how smoothly my students adapted to the move online. Staying motivated and engaged has been a struggle for everyone with lock-down malaise hanging over them. Thankfully, everyone so far remains safe and healthy.

- David

To ensure the health and safety of our students and campus community, and to prevent the risk and spread of COVID-19, Fanshawe campuses will be closed as of11:59 p.m. March 17, 2020. Student services and academics are moving to a virtual delivery format. For COVID-19 updates, please the FAQ pageon the College website.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Welcome to the new decade (the roaring 20's?). This term I'll be making group work central to the ANC educational experience. I will update this post later to say whether it's a big dumpster fire or a wondrous treasure chest filled with magical unicorn glitter. (*update: glitter!!) This meme below made me chuckle, so I thought I'd share it here.

Artist unknown but I hope they are learning to trust and love again.

As usual I'll include the full list of class links below, for archival purposes. This term I'm teaching 2 ANC classes: Animation 2 (6017) and Project Development (6018). This cadre of ANC students have proven to be very skillful when they actually come to class. I'm excited to see what they are going to achieve for their final projects.

Along with my classes, I will be dedicating a lot of my time to getting the new Animation program ready for this Fall. There's a lot of curriculum to write and classes to plan. It is going to be an intense term.

- Dave

Here are all the class links for the Winter semester (*links not connected yet.)